Embroidered Floral Wreath

Updated: Jun 9, 2023

For my next assessment piece, I had to do a wallhanging. I'd always worked on pieces to go in frames before and now it was time to try something different!

Close up of stumpwork embroidery floral wreath for city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece

First of all I had to come up with a design, I wanted it to be something really different. So I started searching the internet for ideas. I decided to do something floral, simply because I just love floral designs. As the only girl in my house, it's nice to make something pretty!

Creating the design

I didn't just search for ideas including embroidery, I kept the search wide to include ideas from other techniques too. I stumbled across a really lovely metal floral wreath, and thought it would be fun to do something similar in embroidery and make an embroidered floral wreath.

Pattern and design for stumpwork wreath embroidery for city and guilds assessment piece

So I got out my pens and pencils and started drawing. I had decided a good way to construct the wreath would be to use an embroidery hoop, so I drew up some flowers and laid them in a circle to the size of the hoop. I played around with the different pieces until I was happy with the overall look. Then I stuck it all together, so they didn't get blown away!

Making up the flowers

Making flowers for stumpwork embroidered wreath for city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece

The next step was to start making up the flowers. I chose different techniques for different flowers. Partly to make it more interesting to stitch, but more importantly, to create a more interesting piece to look at when it was completed.

Here I simply cut out the flowers, and edge the fabric with Fray Check, so that the edges didn't fray.

Making flowers for city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece of stumpwork embroidered floral wreath

For other flowers, I made individuals stitched petals and centres. Much more time consuming, but definitely worth it!

Making the leaves

Machine embroidered leaves for city and guilds hand embroidery stumpwork floral wreath assessment piece

For the leaves I decided to use some machine embroidery. Partly to create a different look to the leaves as for the flowers, but also as I knew it would be quicker! Trying to do these leaves by hand would be incredibly time consuming. That would have been fine for a small piece of embroidery, but as I was using a 14 inch embroidery hoop, it was bigger than I was used to!

Making up the wreath

Stumpwork 3d flowers for floral wreath for city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece

Once I had made up all the individual flowers and leaves, I had them ready and waiting in a couple of jam jars!

Fabric wrapped embroidery hoop as base for stumpwork floral wreath city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece

I didn't really want the finished piece to show the wooden hoop. I thought as the flowers were being attached to the hoop with their wires, it could look quite messy. So I came up with the idea of wrapping the hoop in green fabric. I had some hand dyed fabric left over from my stumpwork sheep picture, so I cut some strips and starting wrapping.

Assembling the floral wreath for city and guilds hand embroidery assessment piece

So, to assemble the piece, I laid my pattern on the floor, with the hoop over the top. I started attaching the flowers, with the largest first, then fitted the smaller flowers and leaves in around them.

And then the piece was finished! I was really pleased with it. Doing this really stretched me to think of something different, that I'm sure I wouldn't have come up with, if it wasn't for the course. Sometimes you just need that little push outside your comfort zone. What do you think?

So here it is.

Finished stumpwork floral wreath for city and guilds hand embroidery level 3

As soon as this assessment piece was done, it was something different again, following a brief! Find about about my Stumpwork Book Cover here: Stumpwork Book Cover (claireharveyembroidery.com)